…damn that’s a lot of curves!
In the late 50's, Thomas had tremendous success racing Corvettes and he gained the attention of influential men within GM. By 1960, Thomas had started his own company and he continued his chain of successes by making other GM products such as the Corvair and Chevy II run circles around the competition. In 1963, Thomas used his connections to gain covert support from GM (through the head of its Performance Product Group, Vince Piggins) to develop a concept vehicle. The prototype was designed jointly by Thomas and his lead fabricator at the time, Don Edmunds. Edmunds is also credited with the bulk of the construction of the car. Financing for the project came from private investors including Thomas himself and John Grow, a Rialto, California Chevrolet dealer. In fact, the first car belonged to John Grow. Using his racing connections, Thomas arranged for material assistance from Chevrolet for the major components - specifically, the Corvette engine, transmission and rear-end assemblies. Whats amazing is that the chassis was basically designed and build by laying the drivetrain components on the floor and drawing a chassis outline around them on the floor with chalk!
There's quite a lot more to the story so I'll include the Wikipedia link.Sadly the company that bought the rights to build continuation copies has gone bankrupt and put all their assets up for sale...so far there have been no buyers.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Thomas_Cheetah
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